The highway is alive tonight —

But where it's headed, everybody knows.

I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light

Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad.

 

In the Jukebox tonight we're going to take a tour through the recent history and evolution of a song, Bruce Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad. Springsteen released the track in 1995 on his solo album of the same name. The 90s were a "lost decade" for Springsteen, which even he now admits. He'd dissolved the E Street Band for the first time in 1989. He made two albums with session musicians- Human Touch and Lucky Town (1992)- which hardcore fans (like myself) tend to be fond of but they didn't translate to a wider audience. As hip hop and grunge/alternative rock began to rule the day and the charts, Springsteen began to look potentially irrelevant, outdated, a fading relic who'd play out his career to his aging fans. However, I saw him live in 1992 for the first time and was blown away, the raw heroic effort and passion transformed my life, and I was a fan, quickly. But it was a weird if not difficult time to be a Springsteen fan. You didn't get any cool points for being a Springsteen supporter in those years, and the widespread falsely held belief that Born in the U.S.A was a jingoistic patriotic song didn't help things either. But I'd witnessed a powerful force onstage, and I was sure that Bruce wasn't done yet.

And there were some gems in those years that Springsteen was drifting and struggling with his direction as an artist. The Streets of Philadelphia was a brave track that won him an Academy Award, and two other soundtrack songs, Missing and Dead Man Walking, were moody and evocative cuts. And there was the song The Ghost of Tom Joad, a gritty, lyrical track that called upon and conjured forth the American artistic/ social-political lineage running back through Woody Guthrie to John Steinbeck and beyond. But it was an update to this lineage too; the song references George H.W. Bush's famous usage of the phrase 'new world order', and talks about the struggles of immigrant and other disenfranchised folks in the American Southwest. Bruce's original version is sparse but potent in its own way; here's the audio of that now.

In 1997 the band Rage Against the Machine did a version of the song, the political nature of the song, and it's powerful message of justice and social action near the end, not being lost on this overtly political band. They dropped a couple verses and rocked the shit out of the song; it's transformation is quite dramatic. I always get goosebumps when I hear lead singer Zack de la Rocha build up in the climactic speech, finally yelling "you'll see me, you'll see me".

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

Here's a live version of Rage Against the Machine doing The Ghost of Tom Joad:

Fast forward nearly a decade and Bruce Springsteen has definitely had a comeback. He puts the E Street Band back together in the late 90s, and he writes a powerful album in response to the events of 9/11, The Rising, which went to #1 on the charts. He's touring again to great acclaim, with new generations getting to see his legendary live act for the first time, and he eventually becomes an indie music darling (a strange but heartwarming twist to Bruce's career and the frosty climate of his "lost years"). The E Street Band is hot, weathered, in the pocket, mean, and Bruce looks confident, fit, and focused. Bruce becomes increasingly political, taking part in the Vote for Change tour of 2004. In 2008, while touring for his latest album at the time Magic, he brings Rage Against the Machine's guitarist Tom Morello on stage for a combined version of The Ghost of Tom Joad. Rage had itself disbanded in 2000, and Morello was now making solo music. The two together- with the forceful backing of the E Street Band- knock the song out of the park. Morello's two guitar solos are now legendary, encroaching on official guitar god status. His second solo is one of the most ecstatic things I've ever heard, and it sails to higher and higher pitches of emotion and intensity at least four times. Morello has now performed the song with the E Street Band many times. Here is one of the first, if not the very first time they recorded it live:

And lastly, while getting my materials together for this edition of the Jukebox, I saw that Nickelback also does a live version of the song. Now I'm no Nickelback fan, and I've heaped my fair share of scorn on the band over the years, but I thought I should give it a listen anyway, so I did. There were two things that struck me. The first is that they do a version of the song that's basically a cover of the Rage Against the Machine version; in fact, in this clip below, they actually introduce it as a Rage song. I found it fascinating to see a piece of art migrate and morph and gain a life of its own. And secondly- they kinda fuckin rock it. I actually think they do a pretty hot version, and thought it was worth inclusion here for both of those reasons.

What's next for this little song off a mostly ignored and forgotten Bruce Springsteen album made in the wandering desert of his "lost years"? Hard to say, but it's had a pretty good run so far, hope you enjoyed the tour.